Output from the garden

How much output can a low maintenance forest garden produce? One of my intentions when growing a small scale forest garden was to gather information on the amount of food that can be easily produced. At the start of each year I have been posting results for the previous year.

In terms of output per unit area this year I make it 7.24 ton ha-1. For a low maintenance approach that is not bad at all. Less than high maintenance allotments but about in line with agricultural production.

The graph below shows a summary of the produce throughout the year.

With the exception of 2010 when I cleared the front garden and grew a big potato crop the garden has steadily increased in output. The next graph shows the biggest producers, the soft fruit and tree fruit. It definitely fluctuates with the vagaries of the weather and tweaks like grafting , existing trees, but the trend is upwards.​

There is more detail in the blog posts. The last one is for 2015 here.

I know that forest gardening is a subject of academic study so if anyone does want to see the detail I've attached a spreadsheet of recorded produce to date below. I would be interested to hear if anyone does make use of the data. I would be really interested in other people's experience too and links to data for similar plots.